PBS got caught up in Boob-Gateover "nipplage" in emma goldman doc

[corporatewhore]

By Lisa de Moraes

Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page C07

Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone confided to investors this week that "a woman's breast is not such a big deal" to him. We wish him a speedy recovery.

Ironic, isn't it, that thanks to Mr. Redstone's MTV and CBS, which produced and aired, respectively, the little Super Bowl halftime number that's come to be known as the Breast Heard Round the World, TV execs all over the country have been engaged in vigorous debate about that part of the female anatomy which no longer holds any interest for the 80-year-old Mr. Redstone.ake PBS station WGBH, for example, where suits went back and forth about how much cleavage to show in its upcoming "American Experience" documentary "Emma Goldman."

You cannot expect to make a documentary about a colorful 20th-century anarchist and advocate of free speech and free love -- a woman J. Edgar Hoover once called one of the most dangerous people in America -- without including a little anarchy, a little free speech and a little free love in the piece.

In calmer times, this would not be a problem.
But since Justin Timberlake unleashed Janet Jackson's right breast during the Super Bowl halftime show and it began its scorched-earth march through the TV industry, it's a big problem.So the executive producer of "American Experience" agreed to cut a couple of seconds of a scene re-creation in the documentary, in which Goldman's lover is seen unbuttoning the front of her chemise, revealing about as much cleavage as Susan Sarandon showed off in that black number she wore to this year's Academy Awards.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48162-2004Mar10.html
check out this line
"According to Samels, it wasn't the cleavage that had the attorney grinding his teeth; it was the question of nipplage."
looks like they are still going after emma

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I like the Washigton Post's title

"Even Buttoned-Down PBS Gets Caught in the Wringer"

surely an allusion to the better known phrase. By coincidence, "All the President's Men" was on British TV a few days ago, and there was a scene where the WP editor says: "The White House said if we run with this, tell Katherine Graham we'll put her tits through the wringer. We'll put that in the story too. But leave out 'tits' - we are a family newspaper".
Is this now a running joke at the WP?

[DemBones DemBones]

2. Good catch on that allusion, Muriel.

I'd guess the headline is an inside joke among those at the Post who remember history.

[corporatewhore]

3. kick